Remaining warm days can be used to install Christmas lights
Warm fall days are great for installing Christmas lights. It is much easier to wrap branches with strings of lights on warm days in mid- to late October than on cold days in late November or early December.
Use LED lights to save on power. This enables you to use more strings on a circuit.
Buy warm-color white LED lights if you want to match the color of the commonly used white incandescent lights. Cool-color white LED lights have a blue cast to them.
Wrap branches of your trees with strings of lights to accent the tree's form. Chicago Botanic Garden staff starts installing strings of lights in early October.
• If you are planting bulbs for next spring, keep in mind that daffodils are among the hardiest, most adaptable and pest-resistant bulbs for Chicago-area gardeners. They naturalize beautifully and are available in many sizes and bloom times.
Proper selection of varieties will give three to five weeks of constant bloom. Deer, squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits do not eat them. Ornamental onions also will not be eaten by animals.
On the other end of the spectrum, tulips are a deer and rabbit favorite. In my garden, squirrels and chipmunks have left winter aconite and snowdrops alone while eating all the crocus.
Proper placement is important for success with spring-flowering bulbs. They prefer moisture in early spring and fall and to be dry in the summer when they are dormant. They do not like wet sites or heavy clay soil.
If your soils are on the heavy side with a high clay content, plant bulbs higher than normally recommended. In general, plant bulbs at three times the diameter of the bulb.
Crocus are ideal bulbs for naturalizing, for rock gardens or for under-planting beneath tall trees. They may be scattered in lawns, but for best results long-term, their grasslike foliage must remain intact at least six weeks before being mowed at a short height.
Crocuses, which are planted more shallowly, are easy targets for chipmunks and squirrels. Blood meal sprinkled on the ground after planting may help repel squirrels and chipmunks.
• Tim Johnson is director of horticulture at Chicago Botanic Garden, chicagobotanic.org.